Trust Me When I Lie by Benjamin Stevenson

Author:Benjamin Stevenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Lauren bobbled in the passenger seat next to Jack. He’d tried to sneak out early, stepping over the blackening banana in his doorway, but Lauren had already been there, sitting on his car hood, legs swinging in the air. She was wearing a black pantsuit with a white blouse, barefoot, her high heels perched on the roof. Jack didn’t have the heart to argue; he tossed his bag in the back and they got in. Five minutes into the drive, Lauren buzzed down the window, stuck an arm out, hooked her heels with her fingertips and brought them back inside.

An hour later, they still hadn’t spoken. Lauren’s jiggling head matched the bumps in the road, and Jack didn’t know what was pissing him off more: the elasticity of her neck or the fact that she was sitting next to him at all, which meant that he had to go back to Birravale. Though Mary-Anne hadn’t asked him to check out, and he hadn’t returned his key either. He was going back whether he liked it or not.

“Do you think they’ll be there?” Lauren broke the silence as they purred across the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

“Who?”

“The murderer.” She angled herself around in her seat, practically leaning out the window to glimpse the sails of the opera house. Jack didn’t bother. Like every other Sydney commuter, he’d become numb to the majesty of the bridge and what was around it. Sure, the bridge was one of the architectural marvels of the world. But it was also just the way to work for any Sydney-sider. It still looked incredible from the aerial photos, but up close, you could barely see the opera house for the barbed-wire enclosed walkways, the train tracks, and the traffic. The opera house’s supposedly pristine white sails were rust dark with water stains. Up close, seeing how things were built, the majesty was removed. Just like people themselves, the nuts and the bolts of them, the traumas and the bruises. Everyone liked the final product, but no one wanted to see it close enough to know how it was all stitched together. Just like his TV show.

Jack peeled off to the Cahill Expressway, which quickly opened up a better view of Circular Quay, the opera house, and the bridge. He feathered the brake in sympathy to let Lauren have a proper look. Then they dipped into a tunnel and into the eastern suburbs, weaving through town houses and roadworks. Another twenty minutes and they were in the beachside suburb of Maroubra. Jack slowed as they came up to Alexis’s family church; he’d planned to park around the corner, so he and Lauren wouldn’t arrive together. The church itself was old and regal, with rough, large-bricked walls. The front facade was peaked and triangular, though the stained-glass window and large wooden double doors were both arch shaped. The way the roof peaked, that triangular prism, the angularity of it, it looked almost like Andrew’s or Curtis’s country homestead. If you added a veranda, wood instead of stone, you could worship at that altar.

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